Rick Lowe
There is lots of public discussion about Arawak Homes Ltd allegedly "knocking a church and peoples houses down".
The following "Report On Pinewood Gardens: Title Issues" is being circulated by the company to defend it's honour.
News reports, and the following document, indicate that Arawak Homes Ltd has proper title to the property, therefore no one should be building on it. And if they have built on it, their best interest would be to somehow settle with the rightful owner.
The document points out that:
"The sad reality is some persons did “pay for the land”, but they paid the wrong persons. Given the multiple notices provided by ARAWAK to advise persons at varying points of the building process of its ownership of the land, it is not now open for any person, to say, they had no idea of AHL’s ownership of the land."
"ARAWAK has found most persons continued to build hoping that, if they finished the structure, the rightful owner could no longer claim the land. Others, it appears, continued to build on the advice of less than careful attorneys."
This is most unfortunate and appears to leave the people that built on land without proper title little recourse but to move.
If the vendor that sold the land is in breach of the law as alleged, they should face criminal charges and defend themselves.
Property rights are sacrosanct if we are to have a country built on the principle of the rule of law.
Download Arawak Homes Limited Pinewood Gardens Report of October 8th 2010 here…
This entire episode is disgraceful, unnecessary and disheartening given that successive government shave passed numerous bills in Parliament but have done nothing to deal with this vexxing problem. In all the utterly foolish political discussions in and out of Parliament no party has seen the need to bring information to the public by way of education, initiate a public forum or push for protective leguslation. If there is no other indictment and justification for the summary dismissal of the PLP and FNM this is absolutely one.
You should never purchase land without going to a trustworthy and efficient attorney. And there are some out there, maybe not a lot but definitely some.
As it appears Arawak has proper title to the land, now as to how they acquired the land themselves is another story, but it definitely appears they do have proper title, thus they have legal right to do with the property what they wish and nobody should have built on it.
The sad thing about it is, Arawak is saying there are hundreds of people in Pinewood and Nassau Village area who are trespassing on their land!! I don’t think this will end well.
How do you know which lawyers are trustworthy and effcient? There is no database or record keeping done by the BAR or the Consumer Protection Agency to my knowledge. A few years ago my mother paid a seasoned lawyer to do a title search for a property that a developer was selling. He verified the title and my mom ended up making a downpayment on the property that was lost forever. Then when you report these events there is no justice. The level of corruption is so high in the Bahamas nowadays.
The degree to which clear title cannot be had, or the frequency that the quiting titles act is used, betrays the insecurity of land ownership in the Bahamas.
We are already undermined Rick.
The Quieting Titles Act confirms the unintended consequences of legislation.
It was written in the 1960’s to help people get title to land that had none, as I understand it.
And now it’s being used to allegedly “steal” land.
Go figure…
And now they write new legislation to revert that?
Or make it easier?
Not sure which, we shall see.
Great Post! It’s very nice to read this info from someone that actually knows what they are talking about.